


About to Bloom

by stephanericher



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hockey, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 06:10:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11961351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephanericher/pseuds/stephanericher
Summary: This isn’t even the best squad they’ve played for, injured and old and halfway motivated; Daiki’s had to pull them along all season but that, he supposes, is what a captain does.





	About to Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> centuries-verse lmao (im gonna run out of lyrics at some point)
> 
> hbd aomine u get ur bf back

Tatsuya is a member of the Flyers for all of twenty hours, maybe, and Daiki kind of feels bad for anyone who had bought a sweater before remembering that this is a bunch of Philly fans and they’ll probably be collectors’ items. It’s a bizarrely intrusive thought that distracts from the essence of everything else, almost overloading his brain; Tatsuya’s not a little bit south and a little bit west, a little bit closer if you were to measure the distance; he’s not a little bit out of the awful winters; he’s all the way out of any of that shit and back in Anaheim and what the fuck and he doesn’t even get to text Tatsuya before he does it first.

gonna welcome me to the team, captain?

“Hey, fuck you,” Daiki says when Tatsuya picks up the phone, laughing of course. “You know, if you want the C back—”

“That’s neither of our decisions,” Tatsuya says. “And it’s not mine to take back. Captain.”

The way he says it hooks Daiki somewhere behind his gut, deeper inside him than he knew his body went. “Shit.”

“You used to do it to me,” says Tatsuya, like this is some matter-of-fact thing, no big deal. “It’s only fair.”

“Don’t you always say that things aren’t fair?”

“Don’t expect it,” says Tatsuya. “You play hockey; you should know.”

Daiki sighs. “You’re coming back.”

“Yeah,” says Tatsuya. “Yeah, I am.”

* * *

There is history, like the history on the Cup, like the history of hockey going back to frozen ponds at latitudes higher than Daiki ever hopes to live, winter mornings and kids taking to the ice when they didn’t know if it would give out under them or not. There is history between Daiki and Tatsuya, threads loosely interwoven in their teenage years and tighter, tighter as they’d both shot up in the Anaheim system, as their relationship had shifted quickly from work and having a couple of mutual acquaintances and sharing the same native language to a capital letter r and a shared apartment, captain and alternate, center and wing, the Pacific Division, the Presidents’ Trophy, the Western Conference, banners raised but never the Cup.

There’s the fear Daiki had drunkenly confessed that first winter when he’d been stuck in Winnipeg the night before they played the Jets and it was dark before five and he’d emptied a six pack and called Tatsuya, heard his voice what seemed like a million kilometers away, like he might as well be on the fucking moon, that he’d have to see Tatsuya lift the Cup for the first time as a member of the fucking Bruins, even though he’d wanted Tatsuya to do well, except if the Bruins were playing the Ducks, and how he didn’t want to win a Cup without Tatsuya, either, and Tatsuya had listened to him rambling for what had seemed like an hour and his voice had been hoarse when he’d finally spoken and Daiki had felt even worse.

There are the zero rings between them, right now, kickass regular seasons and deep playoff runs and individual awards, the kind of hardware that it’s nice to have but would be even nicer if it came with their names engraved on the Cup forever, or up through a few more generations, at least. There’s the need biting them, eating them from the inside out, like they’re made of the ice underneath their skates and they’re melting away, that they’re short on the time they want to buy, they need to buy.

This isn’t even the best squad they’ve played for, injured and old and halfway motivated; Daiki’s had to pull them along all season but that, he supposes, is what a captain does. He’d give the letter back to Tatsuya; he’d meant what he’d said, and he’d never say anything like that lightly. It was Tatsuya’s, and part of it still is; Tatsuya’s better than he is at motivating people and carrying more than he should handle, though Daiki takes a certain pride, more than any scoring title or playoff win, in the way people say he’s grown into the position, that it’s really his team now (not that he’ll have any trouble with it being theirs again).

But they’d kept going on opposite sides of the country, opposite conferences and divergent schedules, all-star breaks and summers and moments when they’d been passing through each other’s orbits, the threads woven looser but still together. There is history but there’s a new stitch in it now, like the stripes on their socks, like taping your stick the opposite way, like turning suddenly because the pucks about to and you see someone in the wrong colors about to head for it, too.

* * *

Tatsuya gets two for boarding six minutes into the game, a shitty call that the fans don’t want to show any mercy to, the kind of welcome back that even the rousing cheers when they’d read the starting lineups hadn’t been. Daiki can’t keep the stupid fucking grin off his face, even on the PK (fuck, when they get Tatsuya back on the PK); they win the faceoff and Daiki takes the puck out of the zone and the lanes are clear; the Avs are way too damn slow to catch him as he skates out all alone, swerves between the circles and fakes out the goalie to take him top shelf, and yeah he could have waited a little longer, killed a little more time (they still have a minute forty plus, maybe) he’s pretty sure they can ride this momentum, rattle the Avs when they should have seized on a very lucky break. Tatsuya’s pounding the glass with his stick from the box and Daiki winks at him when he passes him on the way back to the dot.

“That was for you, you know,” Daiki says, low, between interviews, a two-nothing win where he’d netted both, the second off a gorgeous pass from Tatsuya that he’s been missing for two and a half years, off a play when he could sense that Tatsuya had really wanted to score himself. “That first one.”

“How about you pass it to me next time?” says Tatsuya, quirk of his mouth giving him away intentionally.

"Can’t help it if I’m the better finisher.”

Tatsuya snorts, buttoning his shirt, and Daiki watches his fingers, nimble in the buttons, the tiny things he’d missed about playing with Tatsuya, tapping sticks on shins and watching him get ready after a shower after a win, the look in his eyes like he’s just had a good meal but he’s even hungrier now.

“Can’t wait for you to come back home with me,” says Daiki.

“Only fifteen minutes; I think you can wait that long.”

(They’ve waited long enough already, but Tatsuya bumps his hip against Daiki, gentle, managing to avoid all his bruises.)


End file.
